Drafting without Marvin Lewis

[BengalChris]

(01-16-2019, 10:28 AM)WeezyBengal Wrote: Has anyone thought about how the loss of Marvin Lewis could affect our drafting?

Many of us on the board have given ML a lot of props for his talent evaluation and for having success in the draft. With him gone, does that all change now?

With the Bengals not having a GM to guide the process, does anyone wonder how Zac Taylor will be with evaluating talent and drafting? The guy has never done this before...

We still have Duke Tobin, I guess, but I think one of the biggest impacts of ML leaving is going to be player drafting.

The position coaches were involved in player evaluations, made trips to college pro days, the combine and interviews, plus watching film. I doubt that stops, but the new staff will have less time to do it in.

(01-16-2019, 10:34 AM)psychdoctor Wrote: I believe that Lewis was good at spotting talent.  Not sold on Tobin yet.  I hope Taylor has a strong voice in the war room on draft day.  I hope Mike Brown is at home asleep!

Your last point is absolutely key to not having a bad draft.

(01-16-2019, 10:37 AM)PhilHos Wrote: I think when Taylor becomes officially a head coach could have a somewhat significance on our draft in the fact that he needs to time to evaluate who is currently on our roster, who is a free agent, and where we need improvement (and not just in the obvious). That said, I figure Tobin is probably the biggest key to scouting draft picks, so as long as Taylor has a good plan in place going in, we should be alright.

Our needs are pretty obvious I think.

A. Right side of the OL is awful.

B. LBers in coverage was awful.

C. There's no WRs other than Green and Boyd who can consistently run their routes and make clutch catches, we need a 3rd WR who can BE a WR and DO what WRs do on a routine every down basis. Plus AJ and Boyd are both free agents after 2019. Re-signing them would be a good idea this off season, something the old Mike Brown front office failed to do with Marvin Jones when he was heading into a contract year and Jones wasn't adequately replaced until last year when Boyd found his rhythm.

D. Our TEs resemble the walking dead more than live players.

How the teams fills these holes I have no idea. The front office typically will only sign outside free agents who are of bandaide quality only, and occasionally one of these bandaides turns out to be a keeper, but more times than not they come off before the wound is healed leaving a big sore.